Anti-deport effort would shield immigrants from Mexico violence

Petition aims to protect illegal Mexican immigrantsEffort launched in U.S. would bar deportations due to drug violence

SUSAN CARROLL, HOUSTON CHRONICLE

Published 6:30 am, Monday, December 6, 2010

It's a potentially explosive idea being circulated on petitions in Houston's Latino supermarkets, lobbied for in Chicago's Hispanic neighborhoods and now is landing on the front pages of the Spanish-language press.

With more than 30,000 dead in the last four years from drug violence in Mexico, some immigrant advocates are starting to lobby the U.S. government to grant millions of illegal immigrants from Mexico "Temporary Protected Status," a kind of temporary reprieve from deportation generally reserved for countries ravaged by natural disasters or destabilized by war.

"There is a big chance of getting kidnapped and killed over there right now. It is extremely, extremely violent," said Victor Ibarra, the president of the Houston advocacy organization Alianza Mexicana. "That is why we're asking for temporary protection."

Ibarra said volunteers had collected more than 1,000 signatures in support of TPS since starting a petition drive in Houston on Nov. 4. He said that 15 immigrants rights organizations in Texas, including several in Dallas, Austin and San Antonio, were planning to participate in the petition drive. Nationally, he said, he's been talking with organizations in California, Arizona and Chicago about making a more unified push.

But the idea, which would require the approval of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, is highly controversial and, many say, unlikely to happen in the foreseeable future. Matthew Chandler, a DHS spokesman, said DHS is not considering TPS for Mexican nationals.

"We continue to work with our Mexican partners to ensure the safety and security of communities on both sides of the border," Chandler said.

Mark Krikorian, executive director for the Center for Immigration Studies, an organization based in Washington D.C. that advocates for stricter immigration controls, called the idea of TPS for Mexicans in the U.S. a "nightmare scenario."

"People have talked about it, the activist types, but I don't see that happening," he said. "Honestly, if the president actually did that, a sweeping TPS for Mexicans, I could see articles of impeachment being offered. That would be so beyond the pale that I just don't see any way that can happen."

About 6.65 million illegal immigrants from Mexico live in the U.S., according to the most recent estimate from DHS in January 2009. It's impossible to know how many would qualify for TPS.

Haitians granted TPA

Temporary protected status gives people the opportunity to live and work legally here but offers no path toward a green card or citizenship. The U.S. government granted TPS to Salvadorans after two massive earthquakes in 2001 killed 1,200 people. After Hurricane Mitch in 1998, Nicaraguans and Hondurans were also offered the special status. In January, Napolitano granted Haitians TPS in response to the earthquakes there.

Isaias Torres, a Houston immigration attorney, said Congress allows the DHS secretary to grant TPS when an "armed conflict" in a country endangers deportees.

Isaias Torres, a Houston immigration attorney, said Congress allows the DHS secretary to grant TPS when an "armed conflict" in a country endangers deportees.

Supporters of the idea of granting TPS to Mexicans say it would offer much-needed protection to people who have fled violence south of the border, but do not have viable asylum cases, which typically require that applicants face persecution in their home countries for specific reasons such as their race, religion or membership in a particular social group.

"My colleagues and I have heard stories from people that would make the hair on the back of your neck stand up, chilling things, stories of people who have witnessed people being assassinated and executed in very, very gruesome ways," said Elizabeth Mendoza Macias, a Houston immigration attorney. "But that doesn't necessarily mean they would have an asylum claim. And other than asylum, there isn't per se anything they can apply for based strictly on fear of returning to Mexico."

Israel Martinez, a 29-year-old dentist from Tancitaro, Michoacan, and his wife, Dulce Carolina Lopez, came to Houston recently on tourist visas, and say they are afraid to return home when their permits expire in February. After consulting with immigration attorneys in Houston, Martinez said he was told they did not have an asylum case, despite witnessing gunfights and kidnappings, and watching as their small town slipped into the control of cartels that ran off the entire municipal government and police force.

'I was afraid'

"Nothing happened to me personally, directly," he said. "But I've seen and heard these things. I was afraid, little by little they were taking more territory and people were being killed, and we didn't understand why. We didn't want to wait for something to happen."

Even supporters of the idea said they do not expect the U.S. government to grant TPS to Mexicans soon.

"It will be a long fight for this," Ibarra said. "It might take a few years, but we will keep fighting."